Why should people buy from you instead of your competitors?

With so many options in the marketplace, it is vital that you give your potential customers a better reason to buy from you than from one of many obvious and not so obvious competitors. Customers are exhausted by so many options that not buying at all is one of your main competitors.

If you are unsure why your customers buy from you, the best thing to do is ask them. In the meantime, here are six possibilities.

Your product or service benefits – The main motivating factors in most buying decisions are to either increase pleasure or to reduce pain. What are the most compelling benefits your products or services have to offer? Define these benefits, educate your customers about them and then deliver those benefits each and every sale or commit to making things better when you don’t.

The value they receive – While value is a difficult thing to quantify, you can loosely define it as the difference between the price of your products and services and what they are worth to those who buy them. Even in tough economic times, price is rarely the only reason someone makes a decision to make a purchase. How can you add more value to your products and services?

Their past experiences with you – We’ve all heard the saying, “You’re only as good as your last sale”. This is almost entirely true, and only when you’ve already built up a good relationship with a customer can you hope to keep them as a customer after a bad experience. Make people feel good about doing business with you and they will.

Your reputation – People travel the world to visit businesses with a good reputation. By standing out from the crowd and always delivering value, you generate powerful word-of-mouth marketing that builds your reputation far more efficiently than you ever could with marketing alone. Protect your business reputation at all cost with value and integrity.

It’s safe and easy to buy from you – There’s little more frustrating to a customer that’s ready to make a purchase than not being able to make the payment. Make it as fast, safe and easy to buy from you –both on and offline — as possible. Secure payment portals and friendly, helpful cashiers are a mandatory and guarantees/warranties extremely helpful.

How well you know and meet your customers’ needs – One of the best things you can do in your business is to stay relevant and on top of current trends to get the jump on future opportunities that will benefit your customers. Gather demographic data and use surveys to get to know the opinions and needs of your customers better.

Once you’ve gathered enough data, strive to continue filling in these gaps as a long-term strategy. And by continually following along this course, you’ll be able to define your own answers to these questions and know how to better deliver on them.